A significant amount of attention has been placed on developing new technologies for providing energy from resources other than fossil fuels. Biomass is a resource that shows promise as a fossil fuel alternative. As opposed to fossil fuel, biomass is also renewable.
Biomass may be useful as a source of renewable fuels. One type of biomass is plant biomass. Plant biomass is the most abundant source of carbohydrate in the world due to the lignocellulosic materials composing the cell walls in higher plants. Plant cell walls are divided into two sections, primary cell walls and secondary cell walls. The primary cell wall provides structure for expanding cells and is composed of three major polysaccharides (cellulose, pectin, and hemicellulose) and one group of glycoproteins. The secondary cell wall, which is produced after the cell has finished growing, also contains polysaccharides and is strengthened through polymeric lignin covalently cross-linked to hemicellulose. Hemicellulose and pectin are typically found in abundance, but cellulose is the predominant polysaccharide and the most abundant source of carbohydrates. However, production of fuel from cellulose poses a difficult technical problem. Some of the factors for this difficulty are the physical density of lignocelluloses (like wood) that can make penetration of the biomass structure of lignocelluloses with chemicals difficult and the chemical complexity of lignocelluloses that lead to difficulty in breaking down the long chain polymeric structure of cellulose into carbohydrates that can be used to produce fuel. Another factor for this difficulty is the nitrogen compounds and sulfur compounds contained in the biomass. The nitrogen and sulfur compounds contained in the biomass can poison catalysts used in subsequent processing.
Most transportation vehicles require high power density provided by internal combustion and/or propulsion engines. These engines require clean burning fuels which are generally in liquid form or, to a lesser extent, compressed gases. Liquid fuels are more portable due to their high energy density and their ability to be pumped, which makes handling easier.
Currently, bio-based feedstocks such as biomass provide the only renewable alternative for liquid transportation fuel. Unfortunately, the progress in developing new technologies for producing liquid biofuels has been slow in developing, especially for liquid fuel products that fit within the current infrastructure. Although a variety of fuels can be produced from biomass resources, such as ethanol, methanol, and vegetable oil, and gaseous fuels, such as hydrogen and methane, these fuels require either new distribution technologies and/or combustion technologies appropriate for their characteristics. The production of some of these fuels also tends to be expensive and raise questions with respect to their net carbon savings. There is a need to directly process biomass into liquid fuels, amenable to existing infrastructure.
Processing of biomass as feeds is challenged by the need to directly couple biomass hydrolysis to release sugars, and catalytic hydrogenation/hydrogenolysis/hydrodeoxygenation of the sugar, to prevent decomposition to heavy ends (caramel, or tars). Further, it is a challenge to minimize generation of waste products that may require treating before disposal and/or catalyst deactivation by poisons.